Month: September 2023

  • ODDS and ENDS: Feeding My Family, North London Derby, and David Brooks Didn’t Want to Catch His Flight

    (So remember… How amazingly unlikely is your birth;)

    I’m a stay at home dad; a primary care giver to my daughter and wife. It was a job that I was asking for, but now that I have accepted it, I do enjoy it. There is one aspect of this position that I am still surprised by, and that is the amount of time I now spend thinking about meals for my family. I have enjoyed cooking since back in my college days. My roommate and best friend got me a wok for a birthday gift one year, and that honestly was one of the best gifts I ever received. Not only did I enjoy cooking with that wok, but it also started me on a food journey. Furthermore, I was very lucky that my wife is a trained chef and pastry chef as well – which is like winning the lottery, if you’re wondering. She has been a great inspiration and guide for me as I discover and try new foods and preparations. Though I do the majority of cooking, she can still drop in the kitchen and knock it out of the park when she feels inspired. Anyway… Most days I do triple duty by making breakfast, lunch and dinner, and as such I try hard not to repeat flavors and textures in a day, or even following days. Most of the time it feels like a Tetris puzzle that I have to fit tightly together, appeasing all pallets. It can be challenging, but the reward of keeping the people I love feed is deeply satisfying.

    You better believe that I am going to write about Tottenham Hotspur! This Sunday is the North London Derby – Arsenal vs Tottenham. Yup, Arsenal will be the first true test for Tottenham’s manager, Ange Postecoglou, to prove he has turned this team around. In Spurs first six matches, they have only played one team that is in the top half of the table. Also, they are giving up an average of one goal a game, so this is a team that, on paper, hasn’t played stellar football. That’s where Arsenal comes in, as this will be a game on the road for Tottenham in the very unfriendly Emirates Stadium. If you wanted to have a statement match, this is it. I do like what Postecoglou has done by making this team more aggressive, and controlling the ball. Madison has been a great addition in the midfield creating many great passing opportunities for Son, Solomon and Kulusevski. Also, Richarlison finally scored a goal last week, which hopefully was his coming out, and will get him more chances up front. But the defense is what makes me worried. Arsenal doesn’t let up, and they clearly are gunning to dominate the League and give City a run for the title. Lots is a the line, which will probably make the match a chippy one!

    Did you catch David Brooks Tweet the day before? It’s more silly and tone deaf than anything – but the gist of it is that he was trying to make a correlation between his “expensive” $78 lunch at Newark Airport and America’s inflation issues. But if you look closely at the picture, you can see that there is a glass of scotch/whiskey/bourbon(?) which is the main reason why his $78 lunch was $78. Some internet sleuths were able to find out that the burger and fries was a combo meal costing $17, and that a top shelf drink was close to $25, which logically would mean that David had two drinks. Two drinks in the afternoon before a flight? See, my question here isn’t about Brook’s fake outrage over his costly lunch, but what’s on the other end of that flight that he isn’t eager to deal with?

  • Post #1001

    Yesterday, I wrote my 1,000th blog post.

    When I started posting way back in 2017, I was a new father who was working a very stressful job, and I needed a creative outlet of some sort to keep me sane, and also to make me feel like I wasn’t giving up on me. The goal way back then was to write 250 words about a subject; any subject would do, just as long as I wrote 250 words.

    In that first year, I did a grand total of 11 posts.

    Followed by 105 posts in 2018.

    Then I backslid in 2019 with 67.

    But I came back in 2020 with 143 post. Sure, COVID and being unemployed played a big part in my increase in output.

    All in all, I have written 339,000+ words for this blog, and I have kept my sanity by being able to accomplish something each day. I like to think I am being creative still, and clearly a good number of you come by to read the short story reviews, which I appreciate.

    I also appreciate the solid core of early followers; all five of you – two of whom I do know personally – who took the time to read and like what I was doing.

    I didn’t know what I was doing when I started; I still don’t know what I’m doing, and I probably won’t know what I am doing when all is said and done.

    I am also aware that virtually no one will read this, and most likely I’m just talking to myself here. For that matter, I should rewrite my bio, and do a site redesign… I need new pictures, too.

    I don’t say this enough, but you should “like” my blog, and follow it. Also, you should leave comments, and click on the ads.

    While we’re at it, someone should offer me a job – writing reviews or editing at journal. To be honest, someone should publish my stories and offer me a book deal.

    But for the time being, I’m going back to reading some flash fiction (I’m really enjoying SmokeLong Quarterly currently) and crank out some new pieces.

  • Short Story Review: “The Narrow Way” by Liliana Colanzi (Translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews.)

    (The short story “The Narrow Way” by Liliana Colanzi appeared in the September 25th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Do I even need to say SPOILERS?)

    Photograph by William Mebane for The New Yorker

    Liliana Colanzi pretty much nails it in the first four paragraphs of her story “The Narrow Way.” We come to understand that the Devil is real to these characters, that the Reverend holds power over this community, that the protagonist and her sister have an uncomfortable close relationship, and if you leave this community then you leave for good. Everything that follows in this engrossing story relates back to these four paragraphs, thus creating a structure for this world to exist in, leaving us to see how these characters function in it. This set up, which is what it is, was handled so subtly and with a lite touch, that jaded me didn’t pick up on it until I reached the end of the story.

    There were many aspects that I enjoyed in this piece, but I really want to look at the format/structure that Colanzi used to accomplish her story. First was making the reader slightly uncomfortable with the sisters game of “cows and calves” in the third paragraph – somethings not right with these people as they don’t seem innocent, but ignorant to the changes that are happening to them. Clearly the children of the colony are maturing into puberty, but without any guidance due to the “narrow way” that their religion demands, they go blindly forward, stumbling into these changes. And then with the fourth paragraph, we know that this “colony” is a place of repression and control. Everything that follows next in the story is filtered through these two notions, making the rest of the narrative always feel uneasy, and with a threat of violence. As the story unfolds with each new section, this ignorance and violence continue to be heightened, building to the climax.

    And if one criticism must be laid on this story, it is the climax. When I was first reading the story, I was caught up with the narrative, the language, tone, mood, all of it, so the climax felt correct. When I thought back on the story, it became clear that there were only really two outcomes for this story; escape, or death. The idea that this colony would be destroyed or overthrown by its residents is never entertained by any of its characters, so it never was a narrative option to begin with. I understand that escape and death were foreshadowed by Colanzi from the relative start of the story, but… When you tell a story about repression, isn’t the release into freedom, either through escaping or death, the only stratifying options on the table?

    That having been said, “The Narrow Way” is a very good story – built well, written well, and encompassing a very specific world. This is not a place I want to live, as it’s a repressive and disquieting environment. Yet, there is a very honest humanity in this story that is compelling, and makes one yearn for people to be free.

  • What Today Needed

  • Breakfast Habit

    The kid has been going to her new school for a month now. There have been growing pains, but on the whole, it has gone well. The kid has taken to her new teachers, made friends, and we can tell that she has been improving when it comes to her school work.

    The one aspect that we are all struggling with is waking up. The kid’s school day starts an hour earlier as compared to last year, which means we are all starting our day an hour earlier. I mean we do it, but there is a lot of grumbling from everyone, and it is a tortured process. The results are beneficial, though. We are all getting more done in the day, and going to bed earlier and getting more sleep is never a bad thing.

    One of the new habits I am trying to establish for my family is eating breakfast together around the kitchen table; No more eating in front of the TV. Everyone was for the idea, but we couldn’t agree on what to eat.

    Then one morning the kid saw this segment on CBS MORNINGS about gyeran bap, a Korean breakfast staple. Just so happened that we have all the ingredients in our home, so I was willing to give it a shot. Man, howdy! Not only is it simple to make, but it is exceptionally satisfying for a breakfast.

    Though I am getting a little ambitious now, as I think I might add miso soup, and some avocados to this breakfast to round it out.

    And we are getting to have a better morning together, as well. We are all starting off the day talking to each other, listening to music and connecting.